The law is very short, with only one article: "Manufacturing, import, sales or any offer of products containing parabens, phthalates or alkylphenols are forbidden". And to the surprise of all, it has been approved by the National Assembly, on May 3, 2011, by 236 in favor, 222 against. Is this the end for Parabens in cosmetics?
May 3, 2011
CosmeticObs-L’Observatoire des Cosmétiques, on 13 April, had already drawn your attention about the noose tightening on
Parabens
(
antibacterial
preservatives
so much targeted), as a legislative bill, initiated by Yves Lachaud, asked for their ban, in an action parallel to a
SCCS
(a European Committee of Experts)’s report, which asked for a lowering of acceptable content of some of them in cosmetics (
refer to the relevant article
).
However, Europe is often quite slow to take measures, the French proposal had been rejected by the French Social Affairs Commission … and the problem seemed to have put aside for a while.
A kind of a bolt from the blue, this afternoon. To the surprise of all, and against the will of the French government, the
Assembly has come to approve the ban
of these
preservatives
, on top of phthalates’ and alkylphenols’, all of them being suspected to be
endocrine disruptors
and to be the cause for serious effects on the human health (especially fetal malformations and decrease in fertility rate).
For this occasion, there has been some "trans-party" agreement, as 19 deputies from the government party UMP voted along with the opposition deputies to get …